There is no denying that most of the intellectual debates in today’s society, particularly those that have significant political and social ramifications, evoke emotional responses. This is unsurprising because for most of us our beliefs underpin who we think we are. They form a vital part of our self-concept. It is unremarkable then that we […]
Every now and then I am forced to remove myself from the apparent urgent demands of the “real” world and remind myself that there are more important issues than the ones that dominate the headlines every day. Of course I feel the injustice and suffering caused by conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine. And […]
Almost inevitably it seems, we woke up on 26 January to see pictures of a bronze statue of James Cook lying on the ground having been sawn off at the ankles causing it to topple from its plinth. It seems as though the perpetrator of this act of vandalism believed he was making some sort […]
Many of the activists decrying the celebration of Australia Day on 26 January seem to be historically illiterate. They vilify Captain James Cook, implying that Cook was somehow responsible for the British settlement of Australia. They seem to confuse Cook’s discovery of Australia in 1770 when he mapped Australia’s east coast with the later settlement […]
Education is in crisis in Australia today. The international ranking of our educational outcomes has been on the decline for decades. Our teachers seem to be more dissatisfied with their profession than they have ever been. And all this increasing educational dysfunction has come to be despite huge increases in expenditure on education. No doubt […]
What a strange contradictory world we live in. Or perhaps it might be more pertinent to say what strange contradictory beings we are! We live in troubled times. There is armed conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East. The state pf our economy is parlous and many Australians are facing real cost of living pressures. […]
For most of my adult life I have been fascinated by the notion of time. Time, and how we experience it, has many quandaries which science seems unable to satisfactorily explain. Einstein taught us that time was one of the four dimensions required to explain the physical universe. Whilst scientists insist that time is a […]
I have written many times before about the “long march of the left” through our institutions. It seems that march is now almost complete with our schools, our universities, government bureaucracies and even our corporates awash in political correctness and identity politics. (Here in Queensland even our newly appointed Chief Judge has declared that she […]
The Australian economy is not in a particularly good place at present. Inflation remains stubbornly high; interest rates continue to rise; cost of living is soaring and government debt is at an alarming level. The Reserve Bank of Australia, charged with the responsibility of reigning in inflation, has only had moderate success despite raising interest […]
Well the Voice referendum has been a painful experience for a lot of us. It was essentially a divisive exercise that provided an opportunity for progressives to exaggerate perceived racism in the Australian population. It was built on an antidemocratic effort to give some Australians, based on their ancestry and history, additional benefits over and […]